


Casualties

by Star_Going_Supernova



Category: Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Death, Destruction, Gen, I describe some human deaths, Post-Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019), Titan Fight, nothing too graphic but better safe than sorry, of an unnamed city
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26504233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: The sun was shining when the screaming started.(or; a fight between Titans will always result in casualties)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 36





	Casualties

**Author's Note:**

> This was really different for me to write. It takes a third person omniscient POV, in which there are no internal thoughts. Everything is distantly observed. It was really hard for me not to include any thoughts or emotions, but my goal was to relate these events neutrally, as unbiased as I could. 
> 
> People liked destructive Godzilla, though it seemed a little split between intentional destruction and this type, which is happenstance. Mind the tags, and I hope you enjoy!

The upside to having so many Titans awake and wandering meant there were that many fewer surprises to deal with. Monarch dutifully tracked each and every one as precisely as possible, making it easy to predict their paths and release advanced warnings when they ventured near large cities.

In this, small town areas actually had it much better than metropolises. The Titans never went out of their way to trample buildings or crush cars. If there were open fields or stretches of forests or mountainous paths or empty valleys available, they traversed through those, rather than anywhere dense with concrete.

But sometimes, concrete was the only option.

When a monster no one quite recognized began causing trouble several miles inland in New York—tearing up the earth, leveling smaller towns, roaring with challenge—Monarch noticed straight away that Godzilla altered his course to go after it. They calculated his most likely route once he reached the shore, and unfortunately, it passed directly through a densely populated city.

They sent the warning. Emergency services mobilized to work with Monarch to evacuate as many people from the area and its immediate surroundings as possible. It was, after all, only a projected path. Better safe than sorry.

However, humans were stubborn. Sometimes devastatingly so.

Not everyone left. Many claimed it was a hoax, or some power-move on the government’s part. Some shook their heads in denial and went about their day. Others settled down with the mindset of _what are the chances he’ll come this way?_ —a classic “what are the chances it’ll happen to me?” situation.

What they failed to consider was that it had to happen to someone, and they had just as high a chance of being caught in the crossfire as everyone else.

This response vastly differed from the ones seen in San Francisco and Boston. It would later be speculated that these people had lacked a sense of urgency. The monster wreaking havoc was a distant threat, certainly nowhere near their city. There was no worldwide state of emergency. Why should they take as much as they could carry and run away?

By the time Godzilla appeared on the horizon and took his first steps out of the ocean, nearly half the city’s population had chosen to remain. Countless men and women, and their unfortunate children, had forgone the chance to escape to safety with time to spare, where they could have avoided danger and terror alike—and instead realized their mistake too late.

Godzilla was on a mission. He hadn’t stopped for San Francisco, and he wouldn’t have stopped for Boston if it hadn’t already been emptied. The shortest distance between two points was a straight line, and his line took him right through a still-bustling city.

The sun was shining when the screaming started.

He was too large to pass harmlessly between buildings. The outer facades were no match for Godzilla’s thick skin and jagged scales. Windows shattered beneath his elbows.

His tail swung and dragged behind him. Even if the streets had been wide enough, they weren’t empty, and humans had a terrible habit of running straight forward away from approaching danger.

Buildings crumbled, concrete cracked, and cars were crushed. A bus veered wildly at the sight of him, and drove straight through a storefront window, killing three people.

Perhaps, had the city been luckier, this would have been the extent of the damage. However, what no one had anticipated was the monster deciding to meet Godzilla head on, charging into the city before the King could leave it.

It was a large, ugly thing. Stomping around on four thick, stubby legs, it’s body was similarly stocky but barrel-chested. It was built like a tank, not unlike Methuselah, and was just as armored. Folded sharp barbs lined its spine all the way down to the tip of its short tail, which didn’t even reach the ground when it was standing. Its armored head had a blunt snout and serrated teeth, and on either side of its face were two forward-pointing protrusions, not unlike tusks.

Its body flashed in the sun, as its legs and belly were colored a dull gold, above which, separated by a vivid blue line, it was a rusty bronze. Though shorter than Godzilla, being that it was a quadruped, the highest point on its curved, hulking back easily reached midway up Godzilla’s torso.

The monster snarled and crashed straight through a small building to advance on the King. The structure was nothing beneath it, and the roof caved in, setting off a chain reaction of each consecutive floor crumbling away, until there was nothing but dust and bodies amidst the rubble.

The monster, which would later be dubbed Scuto, both as a play on MUTO and for its resemblance to a prehistoric herbivore, head-butted Godzilla in the stomach and lumbered away before retaliation could occur. Godzilla stumbled backward a step, the building behind him giving way as it took his weight.

Roaring at his opponent, Godzilla lunged after Scuto, charging his spines as he did. The beam burned against Scuto’s side as it attempted to dodge. The street behind the monster took the rest of the hit, charring in seconds. Two cars on the edge of the impact zone burst into flames, the sides nearest to Godzilla’s atomic breath melting. Another three cars were left as nothing but flaky husks. The faint imprints of a few unlucky humans were left on the side of a wall, more partially fused to the cars they’d been hiding behind.

Scuto rammed another building, a taller one this time, and smashed straight through its lower levels. As the top part lost all support, it tilted and crumbled like a jenga tower. Its occupants were thrown around inside as it toppled, colliding with flying desks and chairs and file cabinets.

It nearly shattered as it collided with the street, sending chunks of concrete flying. One in particular collided with a fleeing man, flattening him beneath it before it tumbled away.

Godzilla twisted sharply, whipping his tail around to strike Scuto across its face. It tore through several apartments in the process, cutting down a single mother and her young son as she tried to pull him away from the window.

While retreating to a safe distance, Scuto’s own tail bashed into a tanker containing flammable liquid, sending it briefly airborne before it exploded into an office block. Both the driver and a number of office workers were caught in the blast, dying on impact. The fire slowly began to spread over the block.

Over the next few minutes, each moment lasting an eternity to those caught in the crossfire, the two Titans briefly tangled before lunging apart, teeth snapping and claws scratching and tails lashing. Their own blood splattered to the streets, mixing with the human blood slowly staining the ground.

After getting a fierce, ripping bite in on Godzilla’s thigh, Scuto took to circling the King, keeping a large amount of distance between them. It didn’t seem to notice the man-made obstacles it trampled over and through. The people who had been running for their lives suddenly found themselves fleeing straight into Scuto’s new path, like ants who wandered onto a busy sidewalk.

Some froze up as the massive, trunk-like feet descended too-quickly over them. A dozen humans were lost beneath its steps, flattened into nothing but viscera. The next street over was just as crowded with fragile bodies. The process repeated.

Godzilla ignited his atomic breath again, ducking to follow Scuto’s evasive movements. He seared the rusty brown armor, eliciting a furious bellow of pain. A building or two exploded when they were hit wrong, igniting like dry grass on a hot day.

The city burned.

The two Titans clashed again, Godzilla’s claws latching on anywhere Scuto’s armor would allow. They wrestled, fighting for every inch, pitting their strength against each other.

Just as he’d been able to work out the weaknesses of his previous foes, Godzilla began to leverage upward, trying to force Scuto onto its back legs. It tried to impale its tusks into the King’s stomach, but the moment its forelegs left the ground, it lost any advantage.

With a roar, Godzilla shoved Scuto up and back, forcing his opponent to the ground, belly up. An already damaged building folded in on itself at the quaking force of thousands upon thousands of tons being slammed into the earth. Such power was not kind to flimsy infrastructure.

Aiming right for the jugular, Godzilla unleashed his atomic breath a final time, and at such close proximity and with such a soft target, Scuto could only wail before its throat was blasted open.

Godzilla’s victory roar could be heard for miles in every direction.

• • •

If you were to walk through the streets in the wake of the battle, navigating around overturned cars and massive chunks of concrete, glass and grit crunching beneath your feet, you would find bodies. Some would still be clinging to life—delirious from blood loss, or from being half-crushed beneath rubble, or from being burned by fire or atomic breath or both.

Most of the bodies would be dead.

This young woman, hit by a car when the driver panicked at the image in his rearview mirror. That businessman, flattened by an errant foot as large around as a redwood. A group of teenagers, some still clutching their phones, in the ruins of a bus. An elderly gentleman, mouth slack in surprise, with the end of a pipe jutting out from the side of his head.

Paths of charred metal and ash zigzagged down streets and across buildings. Scuto had been quick, and Godzilla’s atomic breath had to hit something when he missed his initial target.

Entire blocks of buildings were completely demolished. Anyone and anything inside remained trapped beneath the compacted debris.

• • • 

The moment Monarch had realized their warning hadn’t been taken seriously by everyone, they’d prepared to intervene. When the city went from being in Godzilla’s way to being the battlefield, they’d rushed to do all they could.

Looking around the city, Jackson Barnes couldn’t help but think their “all” wouldn’t be enough.

Boston had been a new brand of horrifying. Seeing the way everything crumbled and burned, being in the thick of it—it was enough to give any man nightmares. In the midst of those memories, it was easy to forget that the situation couldn’t have played out better. Boston had been empty, save for their small group, by the time the Titans descended upon it.

These streets weren’t empty. These buildings weren’t empty. But they crumbled and burned just the same.

Monarch’s emergency relief teams arrived at the tail end of the fight, when the two Titans had beaten a path of devastation even farther inland. It was a beautiful day, and he was going to spend it tending to the injured and uncovering the dead.

Jackson had seen stuff like this before. It never really got easier. Part of him hoped it wouldn’t, that he would never become so desensitized to death that he stopped hurting for the victims.

Why didn’t these people leave? Did they not hear the warning? Did they not care to listen?

There would be a high casualty count by the end of this, he knew. And yet, this wasn’t Boston 2.0. The number of human deaths from the battle of Boston could be counted on one hand.

This was closer to San Francisco.

Maybe, if they were lucky, this city would serve as a similar wake-up call to the world. Just as San Francisco showed humanity that the Titans existed, perhaps after this, humanity would learn a new lesson.

Run. Run when the Titans slowly stomp towards you. Run when your home stands between them and their targets. Run when you are told to.

The Titans were here to stay.

**Author's Note:**

> So if you didn’t already see them, go check out the reference pictures I used for Scuto, taken directly from Scutosaurus of the Jurassic World Alive game. I mean, it really did exist, but this is what I was picturing. 
> 
> Love y’all! 
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


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